by Ginn Hale
“Are you afraid that I’ll tell her that you were to blame for the Payshmura putting me out on the Holy Road?” John asked. Fikiri’s pale face flushed red.
“You put yourself out there with your own confession!”
“I didn’t just rush back to Rathal’pesha and confess and we both know that, Fikiri. You panicked and nearly got both Ravishan and I killed.”
“I knew you were going to blame me. You just want to make sure that she hates me!”
“I don’t want Loshai to hate you,” John responded.
“Then what are you going to say to her?” Fikiri demanded.
“Well, I’m not going to lie to her.”
“I knew it!” Fikiri shoved his hands deep into his coat and stepped closer to John. He glared at John. “I won’t let you turn her against me. You won’t tell her anything.”
John glanced down at Fikiri’s pale hands. He’d drawn his black curse blade. John stepped back. Fikiri advanced on him.
“Look, Fikiri, I understand that you’re angry. You have good reason to be angry, but so do a lot of people. We’ve all been through a lot. We’ve lost people we love—”
“You haven’t lost anything!” Fikiri snarled. “Because all you care about is your precious Ravishan!”
“That’s not—”
Fikiri lunged forward much faster than John expected. Fighting beside Sabir’s troops had honed his skills. A wrenching pain exploded through John’s chest as Fikiri drove his curse blade into his heart. John stumbled back from the impact and Fikiri sprang away from him.
A terrible, searing pain burned into John’s flesh. The ground shuddered beneath John’s feet. Overhead, faint streaks of clouds suddenly darkened and rolled into black masses.
Fikiri watched him with an almost radiant expression, blind to the darkening sky.
“You are such a fucking idiot!” John snarled.
“I’m not the one who’s dying,” Fikiri said, smiling.
John ripped the curse blade from his chest. Steaming dark blood gushed up over his hand. He shattered the curse blade between his bloody fingers and hurled the pieces to the ground.
It took him a moment to calm the fury in him and to draw back the wild power that pulsed through the air and land. The wind swirled down around him. It caressed him with spring warmth and the scents of distant forests as it lifted him high into the air. John drank in the force of the wind and slowly descended back to the ground only a step away from Fikiri. The wound in his chest closed like a fist.
Fikiri had gone deathly white.
“You should be dead.” Fikiri’s voice came out in a whisper.
“I think that’s a disappointment you’re just going to have to learn to live with,” John replied. “I’m not going to die, Fikiri. I can’t die. I’m the Rifter and nothing you do will ever harm me. You understand? You can’t hurt me. Not now, not ever.”
Fikiri glanced to the bloody, torn front of John’s coat. The same look of horror that had shown on Tai’yu and Pirr’tu’s faces now showed on Fikiri’s, but for the first time John wasn’t pained to see it. Fikiri tried to bolt away, but John caught him easily. He gripped Fikiri hard, feeling his thin shoulders through his coat. For a moment he wanted nothing more than to crush Fikiri. He would be one more body in a vast field of dead men. But John didn’t want to take another life. And if anyone would free Laurie, it would be Fikiri. For all his other flaws the boy was dedicated to protecting her.
“I know you’ve suffered and I know I’ve caused some of that suffering.” John stared straight into Fikiri’s pale hazel eyes as he spoke. “But you have to get over it because that’s what people do. That’s how we all survive our lives. You know, you aren’t the only one who’s been hurt. You aren’t the only one who’s lost friends and family.”
“You haven’t—” Fikiri shrieked.
“Don’t.” John shook Fikiri so hard that his jaws snapped closed with a loud crack. “Don’t try to tell me that I haven’t suffered! You don’t know shit about me, Fikiri!” Rage welled through John again. He clenched his eyes shut against the sight of Fikiri’s pale, gaping face. He wasn’t going to come to an understanding with Fikiri today. He was too angry and Fikiri seemed intent upon provoking him.
John could feel Fikiri trembling in his grip. It would be so easy to kill the boy. John pulled his hands back from Fikiri’s body.
“Just get the fuck out of my sight,” John growled. Fikiri jerked away from John.
“I hate you.” Fikiri’s voice quavered as if he were on the brink of tears.
“Yeah,” John replied, “that breaks my heart.”
“You’ll pay for treating me like this, for killing my mother! For ruining my life!” Fikiri took two more steps back from John. He stumbled over the uneven ground and almost fell. John watched him.
“Go ahead. Smirk at me!” Fikiri shouted. “But I will make you suffer. I know how to hurt you and I’ll make you pay.”
John turned away. He heard the Gray Space scream as Fikiri disappeared. The ugly sound and the sharp odor of seared ozone came as a relief. John crouched down at the edge of the lake, once again examining the pale green mosses.
“That could have gone better,” he admitted to himself. Ji would certainly be disappointed. He had tried, but he didn’t see how he could make peace with Fikiri when all Fikiri wanted was his death. John straightened. He buried the last men still lying in the open fields and then walked back to Vundomu and up to the Temple of the Rifter.
As he stepped into the temple he noticed the faint scent of burning ozone. He instantly thought of Fikiri and then another terrible thought came to him. He rushed to the room he had shared with Ravishan. When John jerked the door open, the pungent odor of seared ozone rolled over him in waves.
Saimura stood alone in the room. He looked up and smiled at John.
“Where’s Ravishan?” John demanded.
“Gone,” Saimura replied. “You just missed him.”
“Where did he go?”
“Umbhra’ibaye,” Saimura said. “Fikiri came for him. Apparently, Sabir needs the two of them to help evacuate the issusha’im.”
“Umbhra’ibaye.” John felt his throat clenching around the word. It was the one place Ravishan always feared to go. It was a maze of traps and curses, where even ushiri’im were captured and torn apart by spells.
“Ravishan’s sister and Fikiri’s mother are both prisoners there, so there wasn’t much I could say to dissuade them,” Saimura said.
“Fikiri’s mother?” John asked.
Saimura nodded sadly.
“The boy was nearly in tears when he asked Ravishan to help him find her. I tried to tell Ravishan that he was too weak but…” Saimura shrugged. Then he held up a folded slip of paper. “He left this note for you.”
John took the paper numbly. He could hardly concentrate enough to read it. It didn’t say anything that Saimura hadn’t told him, except that Ravishan loved him.
“Jath’ibaye?” Saimura asked. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s a trap. Fikiri’s mother burned on the Holy Road. He wants to kill Ravishan.” John remembered what Ji had told him just this morning. Fikiri would attack Ravishan in Umbhra’ibaye. Ravishan’s death would provoke John to tear the world apart. John could feel the sky outside already splintering with lightning. Sheets of rain began to pound down. He had to go. He had to stop it. But even moving at his fastest, riding the storm winds, it would still take him days to reach Umbhra’ibaye. Ravishan and Fikiri had simply traveled through the Gray Space. They were already there.
If he wanted to reach Ravishan in time he needed to cross through the Gray Space. Just the thought revolted John physically. The one time he’d traveled across the Gray Space he’d thought he was dying. But the pain of it didn’t matter now. He would welcome the discomfort if he could only find a way. Then John realized that he already knew what he needed to do. He needed to go to Rathal’pesha and use the gateway at its heights that opened to both the Bl
ack Tower and Umbhra’ibaye.
John turned and sprinted from the temple. He leaped from the wall of the seventh terrace. Black storm winds wrapped around him. Lightning arced to him and flickered through the clouds. Rain pounded down in waves. Far below, on a soaked walkway, he caught a brief glimpse of Ji. He heard her howl for him to stop. The wind lifted John and thunder drowned out Ji’s voice. He felt the bite of her curses flicker over his body and he drank in their force. Frost traced his skin and hair as he rose high into the black clouds. The wind surged beneath him and he soared up with the killing storm.
Chapter One Hundred and Two
John crossed the northlands on hurricane winds. Torrents of rain spilled in his passage. The entire city of Amura’taye flooded with icy mud as he rose over it. Stones split and toppled from the white mountain above. John heard alarm bells ringing as distant chimes.
The rain turned to sleet as he ascended the mountain. Rathal’pesha’s towers rose before him like pale bones. He felt the sickening chill of the Gray Space and Payshmura spells emanating from them. He loathed the feeling of the towers, but he did not dare lash out against them. He needed the gate inside to remain fully intact.
Instead, he released his anger against the huge walls surrounding Rathal’pesha. Lightning ripped through the heavy stones. Iron supports burned and collapsed and the great walls crumbled. John dropped down to the ground, stepping past the shards of the golden step. He sprinted across the open grounds of the monastery, passing cowering priests and uprooted pines. Thunder and wild winds rolled in his wake.
When an ushiri challenged him, John didn’t even bother to take in the man’s face or try to recall his name. He punched through the ushiri’s chest and hurled his body aside. He didn’t have time to waste. It had already taken him too long to get here. Thin orange rays of the setting sun’s light filtered through the dark storm.
John broke open the heavy doors to the temple and charged up the stairs. He killed any ushiri’im or ushman’im who dared to block his ascent. He ignored those who attacked him from behind. Their knives and bullets meant nothing to him. On the third floor he smashed the timbers barring Ushman Nuritam’s private chambers and dragged the old man out by his long white braids.
Nuritam hissed curses against John and shrieked for the ushiri’im. When they came charging out of the Gray Space, John crushed them against the stone walls or immolated them in cascades of lightning. He killed them instantly, almost thoughtlessly. And at last, no more answered Nuritam’s screams.
By the time he dragged Nuritam up into the high chamber, the old man was shaking and white with shock. In a different situation, perhaps many years ago, John would have pitied the old man. But he knew Nuritam was responsible for the rapes of hundreds of women, for the yearly burning of countless witches. He was the man who had sentenced John to the Holy Road and ordered Lady Bousim’s death. It took all of John’s will just to keep from snapping his neck here and now.
At the heights of the tower the voices of the issusha’im began to seep through the stones. They hissed and moaned their visions of fires and floods. Armies gathered, their guns cracking, orchards burned, and the world split apart.
He comes through the door, one low voice whispered.
He breaks the sisters, another moaned. He crushes the world. He comes to cuts us open and cracks our bones. He burns us. He crushes us.
He crushes us, another echoed.
He kills us! He crushes us! Suddenly hundreds of them were hissing the words in unison. He kills! He crushes! He kills! He kills! He kills!
Their words broke down into inarticulate shrieks and sobs as John kicked in the yellow door at the top of the tower. The reek of the Gray Space and the stench of dry, decaying meat rolled over him.
“NO!” Nuritam screamed at him. “You are forbidden to enter this place!”
John dragged Nuritam in with him.
“You abomination!” Nuritam spat. “Do you even know what you are doing?”
“Yes,” John growled. “I can hear the issusha’im just as well as you can, Nuritam.”
Nuritam looked suddenly sickened. He went silent.
He kills. He kills. He kills. He kills. He kills. He kills. One of the issusha’im wailed the words over and over.
The chant echoed and grew louder within the open space of the huge room.
John dragged Nuritam to the two massive stone arches standing side by side in the center of the room. They were pale yellow and deeply pitted. Countless engravings of Payshmura and English script radiated out from the bases of the yellow arches and spread across the floor. The nauseating sensation of the ragged, open Gray Space emanated from both arches, but the cacophony of the issusha’im’s voices hissed and whispered from the left arch.
John gripped Nuritam hard and then leaped into the left arch, pulling Nuritam with him. The Gray Space enveloped John in a suffocating, blinding cold. It closed in on him, crushing the life from his body, drowning him in helpless numbness. He knew to expect it and yet horror and panic still flooded him. He screamed and the silence of the Gray Space swallowed the sound before it escaped his lips.
An instant later, when he stumbled out of the archway, Nuritam still gripped in his arms, he almost fell to his knees. He staggered and lost his grip on Nuritam as he doubled over and retched. His body shook uncontrollably. He felt cold to the bone and broken inside.
Nuritam turned and tried to leap back through the arch. John caught his leg and jerked him down to the stone floor. Nuritam cried out in pain as his knees cracked against stone.
John forced himself to straighten. Sick chills coursed through his body. He could taste blood in his throat. The last time he had crossed through the Gray Space he had needed Hann’yu’s help just to stand. It had taken him nearly half an hour to recover his strength. But he didn’t have that kind of time to waste now.
The room where he stood was much like the one at Rathal’pesha. Only the door stood directly in front of him and the arches were at his back. John tried to sense further into his surroundings. Twisted stone corridors, winding staircases, and sickening black hollows rushed up over him. For an instant he swayed in the grip of disoriented nausea.
He was still too sick to spread his consciousness out across the vast grounds of the convent. It required most of his concentration just to keep himself upright. Fortunately, he had planned for this eventuality.
John pulled Nuritam up off the floor. The old man whimpered.
“You,” John’s voice came out in a rasp, “will take me to where they make the issusha’im.” John had to hope that Fikiri would go there. No matter what his other plans might be he would still want to save Laurie. If he were smart, he would allow Ravishan to help him get that far into Umbhra’ibaye and then attack him.
“It is blasphemy,” Nuritam whispered.
“Tell me or I’ll kill you.” John swallowed back the mouthful of blood that came up with his words. He clenched his hand around Nuritam’s throat.
“The sacred beds are two floors below,” Nuritam said. “But you will never get past the holy sisters.”
John didn’t bother to respond. He dragged Nuritam out the door and down the stairs. The issusha’im were shrieking, but beyond their voices John thought he heard a noise like thunder—the sound of a Fai’daum godhammer firing on the convent walls.
As he descended the stairs, the smell of desiccated meat and sweet, rotting fruit washed up through the air. In the midst of it, John caught sharp whiffs of seared ozone.
His heart hammered in his chest at the thought of Fikiri having already come and gone. He reached a wide, dark corridor. The eerie greenish light of moon water lamps glowed over the deeply carved walls. John read the delicate words carved into the walls and floor as he dragged Nuritam towards a staircase. They were spells promising terrible death and suffering. John was careful not to touch any of them. But Nuritam wasn’t so cautious. He kicked his foot over a flowing line and then tore himself free from John’s grip.
Instantly, a wailing alarm screamed out over the cries of the issusha’im. Brilliant gold light shot up all along the incised letters in the walls and floor. John caught a glimpse of Nuritam’s grin as the man bolted for the stairs. Then the light intensified to a blinding flare and John clenched his eyes closed.
Curses lashed and burned through John’s body. He tensed as hundreds of them surged into him. They were much like the wards Ji had raised to protect Vundomu, but they were more ancient and the blood of more than one Rifter had given them life. They dug into John’s flesh. He didn’t resist them. He drew them in as he would have drawn in a storm. He drank their power, reclaiming the strength of those Rifters before him.
Their power surged through him like an insatiable fury. It burned against John’s restraint, scorched his muscles, and filled his mind with a terrifying longing to feel mountains shatter and to watch brilliant eruptions of lava wash valleys bare. He held the raging desire back and shook as it fought through him.
Steadily the golden light dimmed, leaving the corridor illuminated only by the pale green glow of moon water lamps. The carvings in the walls and floor blackened and then cracked. John sagged, feeling as burned out as his surroundings. His body was drenched in sweat and the air around him felt like ice. Images of molten stone and luminous magma still flickered through his thoughts. He refused to acknowledge them. He didn’t have time to waste here in the dim hall regaining his composure. He rushed to the stairs and then pulled to an abrupt halt.
A wash of dark blood covered the steps. At the bottom of the stairs, Nuritam’s body lay in three pieces. There was some kind of trap on the stairs. John took a deep breath and jumped. He felt the cold lash of the Gray Space cut deep into the back of his thighs and shoulders. Then he landed on the stone floor below. He skidded through Nuritam’s blood, slumping down to one knee. He glanced up in time to see a tall woman in black robes drive a long spear into his chest. Pain and rage flared through John. For an instant, he imagined geysers of fire ripping through the convent floor. John suppressed the thought.
